The Kimball graphic. (Kimball, Brule County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1905, 1887-01-14
eAouLs OF THE PRESS.
How They Abused the Father of HI,

|
| Country.
Those who regard President Cleve-
land as the first chief magistrate who
has been viliiied by the press are ignor-
ant of history, writes Ben: Perley
Poore in The Philadetphia Times The
spirit of defamation began when the
man blamed the woman and the woman
blamed the serpent. In all lands the
| public and private characters of chief
magistrates have been assaulted, and
no man, living or dead. was ever more
cruelty maligncd or outrageously de-
famed than George Washington. Let
me adduce but fragment or two
from the mass of scurrillity heaped
upon him. He was denounced as "a
traitor for his proclamation of April,
1898, declaring am ty with the bcllig-
ercnt powers of Europe, and warming
citizens OF the United States against all
| movements inconsistent with neutrality.
For this plain act of duty under his
oath he was held up to public scorn.- he
was accused of hostility to France and
secret favor to England; and, as one of
| the results of this denunciation, at the
opening oil the third congress i'll the en-
suing December the administration
| candidate for speaker was defeated by
an emphatic majority.
The A,rora of that day said: :.It
| ever nation was debauched by man
| the American nation has been debauch-
ed by Washington. If ever nation
WAS deceived by man the American ma
tion has been deceived by Washington.
Let his conduct, then, be an example to
future ages. Let It serve as q warning
| that no man may become an idol. Let
the history of the federal government
instruct mankind that the mask of
patriotism may be worn to conceal the
foulest designs against the liberties of
the people" In a letter to Henry Lee,
under date of July q, 1898, Washing
ton spoke of the violence with which
his policy had been assailed. ''But in
what. he says, twill this abuse ter
inmate? For the result, as it respects
myself, l care not. for l have consola-
ton within that no earthly efforts can
| deprive me of, and that is, that neither
ambition nor interested motives have
| influenced my conduct, and the arrows
of malevolence, therefore, however
barbed and we'll pointed. never can
reach the most vulnerable part at me
though, while am up rs mark, they
will be continually aimed. The publ
cations in Frecman's and Buck papers
are outrages on common decency.
When. on one occasion as Jefferson
tells lis, Knox made some allusion to
recent libcls uttered by the press.
| Washington became very much excited,
| int ,ft
he can not command himself; dwclt
much on the personal abuse which had
been bestowed upon him; dcfied any
man on earth to produce one single act
of his since he had been in the govern
ment which had not been done with the
purest motives. He had never repent
ed but once the having slipped the
moment of resigning his oifice-and
| that was every moment since-and by
God. he had rather be in his grave than
in his present situation. He had
rather be ON his farm than be made
emperor of the world, and yet they
were charging him with wanting to be
king. That rascal Freeman sent him
three of his papers every day, as if
he would become the distributor of
them---an act in which he could see
nothlng but an lmpudent design TO IN
suit him.
On the second day after Washington
retirement from the presidential chair
the following appeared in The Aurora:
Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant
| depart in peace, for mine eyes have
seen Thy salvation,' was the pious
ejaculation of Il man who beheld a
flood of happiness rushing in upon
mankind. If ever there was time
which would license the reitcration of
this exclamation that time has now
arrived for the man who is the source
of all the misfortunes of our country
is this day reduced to the level with
his fellow-citizens. y Such diatribes
against the foremost man of the nation
show that personal yituperation is not
modern weapon.